Admirers, Beaches, and Nightmares
by empathy-and-apathy
Summary: Tony decides to take the team to the beach. Clint and Natasha have to deal with being public figures, snark and comfort ensues.


This was one of those rare weekends when the whole team was in the tower. Tony and Bruce had actually left the lab for once, Steve wasn't training or doing charity work, Thor was visiting Jane and had brought her to the tower to meet the team, and Clint and Natasha had a bit of time off after a long mission. The team hadn't been together for very long and things were still a bit, awkward.

Tony walked into Pepper's office and told her his idea.

"Tony, I don't think-"

"Nonsense, Pep." Tony interrupted, "What could possibly go wrong?" He said with a smug smile and a wink before making his way to the lounge.

"I'd rather not think about that." Pepper muttered after Tony left.

"Jarvis, alert the others to a team meeting in the lounge in 10." Tony told the AI in the elevator.

"Right away, Sir." Jarvis replied cooly.

Sure enough, ten minutes later the entire team plus Pepper and Jane was seated around the lounge. Jane and Thor sat on the love seat, though Thor took up most of the space, Bruce and Steve sat on separate arm chairs, and Clint, Natasha, and Pepper took the remaining seats on the couch. Tony stood before them all with a mischievous look on his face.

Clint leaned closer to Natasha to whisper in her ear. "What do you think he's up to now?"

"It's Stark, so nothing good." Natasha whispered back.

Tony looked at the two assassins. "Do you have something you would like to share with the rest of us?" He asked, gesturing to their quiet conversation.

Both assassins stared back at him with unamused faces.

"Right then," Tony started as he clapped his hands together once, "I have come to the conclusion that since we are all here for once, we should take advantage of it."

"And do what, exactly?" Steve asked.

"We're going to have some time to relax at..." Tony began but trailed off, wanting to get a rise out of the team.

"Tony." Steve said, unamused.

"Lighten up Cap, we're going to the beach!"

A series of eye rolls and groans were contrasted with Thor's large grin.

Jane leaned in to tell Thor something and Tony immediately wanted to know what was said.

"Jane has informed me that she did not bring a bathing suit with her on this trip." Thor stated for her.

"Uh, yeah, I don't have one either." Bruce said, hoping it would get him out of going to the beach.

"Nor do I." Thor said.

"Alright, solution:" Tony began, "Thor, Bruce, Steve, Clint and I will go get trunks, and I'm assuming you two don't have any here either?"

Clint and Steve made gestures of agreement.

"And Pepper, Jane and Natasha will all go get theirs, again I'm assuming here, Natasha." Tony continued.

Natasha glared at him but made no move to correct the billionaire.

"So it's settled then." Tony said.

Later that day, Natasha, Pepper, and Jane were walking to a bathing suit shop of fifth ave when someone approached them. Natasha was wearing sunglasses but the person still managed to recognize her easily.

"Excuse me, are you the Black Widow?" The young woman asked, her boyfriend standing behind her looking apologetic.

Natasha nodded slightly. "Yes."

"Oh good, I saw your hair and thought so, but then I was unsure because it seems longer than after the whole, thing..." The girl trailed off.

Natasha gave her a small smile, forced, but a smile nonetheless. "It is." She responded.

The girl looked down for a second, gathering courage to ask her next question. "Could I possibly get a picture with you?"

Natasha paused for a second, no one had ever asked her that before. "Actually given my job, I'd rather not." She answered, giving a small apologetic look.

"Oh, okay, no problem!" The girls said. "Just thought I'd ask." With that, she and her boyfriend walked away quickly.

"That was a little harsh, don't you think?" Jane asked. Contrary to popular belief, Jane was not a bashful little flower, she definitely had a mind of her own.

"I'm not used to dealing with the public knowing who I am. I don't think I ever will be." Natasha said blankly.

Luckily, Natasha's phone rang as they stepped into the store, saving her from having to continue this conversation.

"_Yes, Clint?" _She asked in Russian.

"Hey Tash, _you having as much fun as I am?" _Clint asked in Russian as well, neither of them wanting anyone else to understand them. Not for any specific reason other than habit.

"_Arguably less." _Natasha stated dryly making Clint chuckle on the other end.

"_At least you're not stuck with Stark." _Clint countered, making Natasha smile a bit bigger than before, leaving Pepper and Jane to wonder what the hell she was talking about.

"_Someone recognized me on the street today. No one from my past, just a random person." _Natasha clarified, knowing Clint would automatically think of the worst case scenario.

"_How'd that go?" _

"_It was, awkward. She asked for a picture." _Natasha told him quietly.

"_Did you take one?" _Clint asked.

"_Of course not. Just because the public knows us now doesn't mean it's a good idea to go around acting like a conceited celebrity." _Natasha said.

"_I probably would have done the same thing. Hope you didn't scare her too much." _Clint joked.

"_No promises." _Natasha retorted. Pepper shoved some bikinis in Natasha's direction. _"Hey Clint, I have to go, Pepper is making me try things on now."_

"_Buy something sexy will you?" _Clint said, making Natasha genuinely smile and roll her eyes.

"_I'll keep you in mind." _Natasha said before hanging up.

"Was that Clint?" Jane asked.

Natasha nodded.

"I didn't know he speaks Russian." Pepper said.

"Not a lot of people do." Natasha said before she walked off to the dressing room.

Jane was the first to make it out of the dressing rooms, she had only tried on one thing. "Is she always like that?" She asked softly.

Pepper thought for a moment. "Yeah, pretty much. She takes a while to trust people. I don't blame her though."

Jane was obviously still lost and cocked her head to the side.

"No one really knows much about her past, but it's definitely the worst of everyone on the team." Pepper said quickly, just before Natasha walked towards them.

"Find something?" Natasha asked Jane.

"Yeah, you?" Jane inquired.

Natasha nodded and Pepper pulled her wallet out of her purse.

"Oh, you don't have to do that." Natasha stated.

"Nonsense," Pepper smiled, "Tony's making us all go on this trip, who's to say he shouldn't pay for what you need?"

Natasha shot her a look that said 'I'm not complaining,' and Pepper proceeded to use Tony's credit card to pay. The men were still trying to find a store that sold swim trunks that weren't terribly outdated or far too colorful for anyone their age.

While Tony, Thor and Steve sort of reveled in the attention they got, since they've been dealing with it for a while, Clint and Bruce were not as happy. Not many people knew what Bruce's actual face looked like since the footage was mostly of the hulk, but Clint's face was now more recognizable than he would have liked. He wore a hat and sunglasses to try and hide himself, but when you're walking around with Iron Man, Captain America, and a God, the hopes of going unnoticed quickly disappear.

While no one singled him out specifically, the attention that the group of them was getting was more than enough to put the archer on edge. That is, until a young boy approached him with his mother.

"Hi!" The little boy said as he waved enthusiastically.

"Hey there." Clint said warmly.

"Are you Hawkeye?!" The boy asked.

Clint crouched down to the kid's level and took off his sunglasses so he didn't seem so stand-offish. "Sure am, little man." He responded with a lopsided grin.

"That's so cool! You're my favorite! I like how Iron Man sticks his hand out and goes '_Pew Pew' _and flies around and stuff but shooting arrows as good as you is _so _much cooler." The boy stated, grinning from ear to ear.

"Hey, I resent that!" Tony piped up.

"Can it, Stark." Clint said with a smug smile on his face before turning his attention back to his small admirer.

"Hey, where'd you learn to do that, anyway?" The young boy asked.

Clint though for a second and then said, "Alright, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret." He motioned for the kid to come closer to him and the child showed no hesitation. "I learned it in the circus."

"You were in the circus?!" The boy squealed.

"_Cool, _right?" Clint asked.

"The coolest!" The kid replied.

Just then, Natasha and the other women came across the group of men unintentionally.

"What, do you have a tracking device on one of us, Romanoff" Tony quipped.

"If I did, you would be the last person I would tell." Natasha said dryly as she made her way over to her partner, curious as to what he could be saying to this kid.

"Hey, Barton, what's-" She started to say before she was interrupted by a high pitched voice.

"Wow, you're really pretty." The kid said, suddenly taking on a more bashful persona.

Natasha gave him a small smile. "Thanks." She said before also dropping down to his level.

"So he's Hawkeye, and they're Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and Hulk," The boy said, pointing to everyone correctly, "That means you're Black Widow, right?"

"I am." Natasha confirmed with a little bigger of a smile.

"That's so _cool!" _The little boy said, and Clint mouthed the words as they were uttered.

Natasha raised an eyebrow at the archer, and Clint bumped his shoulder into hers, causing her to roll her eyes.

"Say, what's your name, kid?" Clint asked.

"My name's Kyle and I'm six." The child said proudly.

"I'll let you in on another secret, my name is Clint, and this here's Natasha." Clint told him.

"Hey you two!" Tony called out to Clint and Natasha, "Are you going to be talking to the munchkin for much longer?"

Both agents rolled their eyes at the billionaire, making Kyle laugh.

"Well bud, looks like we're gonna have to head out." Clint told him.

All of a sudden, the kid threw his arms around Clint's neck and hugged him tightly. Clint chuckled a bit at the move and hugged him back before the kid quickly made his way over to Natasha to hug her as well. Natasha froze for a second, she had honesty not expected the kid to hug her even after he hugged Clint, after a second though, she reciprocated the hug with a smile.

Kyle pulled away and went back over to his mother as Clint and Natasha stood up again.

"Thank you for talking to him, he loves you guys." His mother said.

"Not a problem, ma'am." Clint said with another lopsided grin.

"Bye Clint! Bye Natasha!" Kyle yelled as he and his mother began walking away. Clint and Natasha both waved back at the child.

"He said I'm his favorite." Clint said smugly, and loud enough for the rest of the team to hear him.

No one responded to him.

"Well I'll leave you to the boys day out, see you back at the tower." Natasha said before turning to walk away with Pepper and Jane.

"Later, Nat." Clint responded.

Tony shot Clint a suspicious look.

"What?" Clint asked.

"Oh, nothing." Tony said innocently.

Clint raised an eyebrow but decided to not question Stark. Clint knew what Stark was thinking, more or less anyway. Stark was thinking that he and Natasha were together, not that he was wrong, not really, but they didn't really want people to know. The only person who knew them well enough to confront them about it was Phil Coulson, and the secret died with him, at least until Tahiti.

The guys had finally found swim trunks and everyone was now on the plane to Tony's private beach in Malibu.

"You know, Tony, you never said we'd by flying across the country." Bruce said.

"Easy, big guy, the house is big enough to fit us all comfortably for the weekend." Tony said, clapping a hand on Bruce's shoulder.

"Now let's see, how should we split this up?" Tony started as he thought aloud. "Pepper and I, Thor and Jane, Steve can share the living room with Bruce, that just leaves...the Hawk and the Spider. Now there are three bedrooms, but each only has one bed."

"Tony." Pepper warned.

"What? It's not like they haven't shared a room on assignment before right? SHIELD wouldn't splurge on two rooms, that would be wasting tax payers' money." Tony explained.

"It's fine." Natasha said, ending Tony's rant before she or Clint actually hit him.

"See Pep? It's fine." Tony said before Pepper pulled him back down into his seat.

When the team finally made it to the beach, everyone was minding their own business as they laid out their things, until Tony happened.

"What?!" He yelled. "I refuse to believe it."

"Believe what?" Steve asked.

"Nat here-"

"Natasha." She corrected.

"_Natasha _here just told me that she's never been on vacation to the beach before." Tony finished. "What have you been doing all your life?"

"I've been a little busy, Stark." She said simply. "Some of us have actual jobs that don't leave a lot of time for vacationing."

Tony squinted his eyes at her for a second. "Fair enough, Romanoff."

Natasha rummaged around in her bag for a second before muttering some profanity or another in Russian and turning to the rest of the group. "Does anyone have sunblock?"

"I do." Pepper held out the bottle for her.

"Thanks." Natasha said before taking off her cover up. Clint had to consciously stop himself from raking his eyes over her. The bathing suit she got was a black string bikini, but Clint expected nothing less. What Natasha wasn't expecting however, was for everyone else to look at her. Some looked for obvious reasons *cough cough Tony cough*, but the rest of them saw scars. Clint had scars too, but Natasha's pale skin made hers more noticeable.

Pepper walked over to her, successfully blocking Tony's view, and asked her a question. "Those weren't in the pictures Tony pulled up when you were assigned to Stark Industries were they?"

"Photoshop." Natasha said simply. She didn't much like being the center of attention when she wasn't playing a part for a mission.

"Do most people who have been in that business have that many scars?" Pepper asked quietly.

"Most people aren't in this business as long as I have been." Natasha said solemnly.

"I'm sorry." Pepper said.

"Don't be." Natasha responded, ending the conversation. Everyone suddenly felt awkward staring at the scars. They all understood that she meant most people died before making it this long in that world.

Once Natasha had given the bottle back to Pepper and everyone's stuff was laid out on the sand, Clint got an idea.

"Hey, Tasha, I'll race you to the water."

Natasha eyed him for a second. "I'd like to see you try, Barton."

"I could hold my own." Clint said, feigning hurt.

"A race!" Thor bellowed. "May I join?"

"Of course, Thor." Clint answered. "On the count of three. One, two..."

"Three!" Natasha said quickly before peeling away.

"Not fair, Tash!" Clint yelled as he and Thor rushed to the water after her. Natasha got to the water first, whether it was fair or not, and gracefully dove under a large wave before Clint could grab her foot.

The rest of the group eventually joined the three in the water, some diving under the waves, some going over them.

"Hey Tasha watch this." Clint said before ducking under water and doing a hand stand. Then promptly fell over.

When he came out of the water Natasha was laughing lightly.

"Why don't you give it a try, hot shot." He said before splashing water in Natasha's face. She gave him an unimpressed look but them proceeded to mirror Clint's trick, feet pointed perfectly. The water was relatively calm at that moment so she started walking around on her hands, weaving around Clint, Steve, and Bruce like a car on a test track with traffic cones. She circled around behind Clint again before disappearing under water.

"Show off." Clint muttered.

"I heard that." Natasha's voice said behind his head, but when he whipped around, she was nowhere to be seen.

Natasha silently popped up for air behind Clint again, but the team could see her so she put her finger to her lips and shushed them before ducking back under water and tapping Clint's leg.

Clint whipped around again and scooped her out of the water.

"Took you long enou-" Natasha started to say, but she was unable to finish because Clint threw - not tossed, threw - her into an oncoming wave.

Out of nowhere, Natasha rose up out of the water and tackled Clint, holding him under. Clint stood up with such force that Natasha was thrown backwards back into the water, but she swiped at his legs so he full under as well. Both came up out of the water at the same time and Natasha threw a punch at Clint's face, which he easily dodged before countering with his own attack. Natasha ducked out of the way and kicked out at him. He caught her leg and flipped her over into the water. On her way down she landed a kick on his right shoulder, sending him under as well. Natasha was the first to recover so when Clint came out of the water she jumped on his back, sending them both right back in.

The team could see sand being churned up from where the two were sparring, and once in a while one of them would come up for air, only to be dragged down under by the other. Tony suggested that they bet on who would win, and he chose Clint, but everyone else refused to state who they thought would win, mostly because they were unsure who would best the other.

Eventually, Natasha came almost flying out of the water but recovered fast enough that she didn't go back under. Clint came up to enjoy his victory when Natasha kicked the back of his knee so he was kneeling, and she put him in a choke hold.

"сдаваться." _(Surrender.) _Natasha said loudly in his ear.

"Never." Clint rasped before a wave crashed over his head.

"I'll give you one more chance." Natasha said as another wave came.

Clint held whatever breath he had left as the second wave took him under again.

"_сдаваться." _Natasha repeated, smiling.

Just as a third swell was about to arrive Clint yelled out.

"I surrender!"

Natasha quickly let go and pulled him back up to a standing position, then turned to face away from the group so she could inconspicuously fix her top.

"I think I'm going to sit on the shore for a bit." Natasha said, her Russian accent seeping heavily into her words because her brain was probably a little oxygen deprived. She was a little out of breath not only because she was sparring, but because she had to hold her breath for much of it.

As she made her way up the sand, Thor and Jane set off on short a walk down the beach, Tony, Clint, and Steve stayed in the water, and Pepper and Bruce joined Natasha at the towels. When they got there, Natasha was already reading a book with a water bottle sitting next to her. She greeted them with a small smile as they walked up.

"Bored of the water?" Natasha asked the two without looking up from the page.

"I'm starting to prune." Pepper responded. Somehow she had managed to keep her hair dry. Natasha on the other hand, had put hers up into a bun to keep it from dripping on her shoulders.

"What are you reading?" Bruce asked, after he noticed he couldn't understand the Cyrillic written across the cover.

"The Idiot." She said.

"That's Dostoyevsky, right?" Bruce inquired.

"Yeah, have you read it?" Natasha answered, finally looking up.

"I have, actually. But never in Russian." He said, awkwardly making a joke. Natasha smiled at him for trying. "Hey, uh, could you teach me how to say 'You're such an idiot' in Russian?"

Natasha gave Bruce a quizzical look. "Sure, but why?"

"I share a lab with one and I think it'd be funny if I called him that from time to time, just to freak him out." Bruce answered.

"Oh this could come in handy for me too." Pepper added.

Natasha smirked and agreed.

"Okay well all together it's 'ты такой идиот.' 'Idiot' is pronounced the same as in English just with an accent, like 'eedeeót', and the accent is on the 'o'." She started.

Pepper and Bruce both quietly tried out the word and Natasha continued.

"So that's easy enough. The other part is pronounced 'tay takoy'." She finished.

Pepper tried out that part and Natasha laughed a bit. "Not quite." She said. "Repeat after me. _Tay."_

"Tay."

"_Takoy."_

"Ta-koy."

"_Eedeeót."_

"Idiot."

"I think Tony'll get the gist." Natasha said light heartedly and turned back to her book.

A bit later, Thor had gone back to the water, and Clint and Jane had come back onto the beach.

"¿Qué estás leyendo ahora, Natasha?" _(What are you reading now, Natasha?) _Clint asked her in Spanish.

"Se llama 'El Idiota', como tú." _(It's called 'The Idiot', like you.) _She quipped back.

"¿Por qué me duele tú así?" _(Why do you hurt me so?) _Clint asked as he brought a hand to his heart dramatically.

"Te gusta." _(You like it.) _Natasha responded with a sly smirk.

After she was sure the short conversation was over, Jane turned to Natasha. "How many languages are you fluent in?"

"I've always wondered how many languages you speak." Pepper added.

"Those are two very different questions." Natasha said. "I'm fluent in Russian, English, Spanish, Arabic, French and Mandarin. I can speak German, Italian, Korean, Czech, and a bit of Cantonese."

"Holy shit." Jane said. "I figured you spoke a few but i was not expecting that."

"It helps to be versatile in my line of work." Natasha said with a smile so as to not make things awkward.

"I speak a few myself." Clint added.

Natasha patted Clint's knee. "Of course you do."

"Hey I speak English and Spanish, and Russian because of you. That's more than most people can say." He said defensively.

"What do you mean you speak Russian because of her?" Jane asked.

"Back when I was still affiliated with the Red Room and KGB, Clint was sent to kill me." Natasha said nonchalantly.

"And I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I mean look at that face." Clint said as if he was talking to a child and pinched her cheek.

Natasha pushed him over. Hard.

Late that night, after the group had take-out and everyone had gone to bed, Natasha was woken up by Clint.

"Huh?" She asked tiredly.

"You were having a nightmare." He stated.

"Thanks." She said. "Can we go outside?"

"Of course." Clint told her. He grabbed the blanket they had used earlier on the beach and they walked outside under the light of the moon and laid out the blanket. Clint laid down on it and motioned for Natasha to do the same. At first, she just sat down next to him, looking out over the water, saying nothing. Clint sat up with her and stroked her back lightly, knowing she didn't really want to talk right now. Natasha leaned against him and they sat like that for a while. The silence wasn't awkward, it never was with them. Eventually Natasha moved so they could lay down and draped herself over Clint. Her head rested on his shoulder and her arm was strewn across his waist. Clint brought one arm to continue rubbing small circles her back, and the other hand went to stroking her hair.

Natasha was finally relaxing when Clint heard soft footsteps coming closer to them. He looked up to see Tony, and figuring it was too late to come up with a story as to why they were out here, and knowing that Tony wouldn't believe it, he made no attempts to move from his current position.

"I'm sorry, is she-" Tony started to whisper.

"I'm awake." Natasha said, not sounding tired at all.

"How come you guys are out here so late?" Tony asked.

Natasha looked up at his face and saw something that she only ever saw when he was slowly dying. She sat up and pulled Clint up with her, motioning for Tony to sit on the blanket with them. "Nightmare?" She asked knowingly.

"Yeah." Tony said quietly.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Does it ever get easier?" Tony asked, totally bypassing the question.

Natasha glanced at Clint, then looked back to Tony. "With time, it does, but then it will get bad again. It gets better, but never really goes away. You'll have good days, and you'll have bad days, and you just have to take it as it comes. You have to find something to anchor you to reality." She told him.

Tony thought about that for a second. "How do you deal with your job? I mean you see a lot more shit than I do, and you still seem relatively normal."

Natasha ignored the jab at the end of that because it meant he was starting to feel better. She glanced at Clint again and then said, "This asshole here seems to do the trick most of the time."

Clint winked at her and knocked his shoulder into hers, earning himself yet another eye roll from the spy. Natasha turned back to Tony. "It doesn't have to be a person, it can be an object, a hobby even. You just have to make sure you don't lose yourself, because when you lose who you are, it's hard to get back."

"I'm sorry." Tony said simply.

"For what?" Natasha asked.

"You've obviously had a lot of experience with this sort of thing, and a lot of time to think about it. I'm sorry that you had to go through that." He told her.

"I wouldn't be me if those things didn't happen, however _unfortunate_ they may have been." She stated.

Clint smiled at her and wrapped and arm around her shoulders, pulling her into him.

"Thanks." Tony said as he got up and turned away. Just before he walked away he turned back to the two assassins. "Oh, and I totally called...this." He added as he gestured to their closeness, and walked away.

"Fuck off, Stark." They both said at the same time.

"Now that's just scary." He called back over his shoulder.

The next morning at breakfast, Tony looked more well-rested than Clint and Natasha had seen him in a while.

"Where did you go last night?" Pepper asked him as he sat down.

He shot a smile towards Clint and Natasha. "Just, out for a walk, to clear my head."


End file.
